A former Park Service ranger said Friday that the U.S Senate candidate Tim Sheehy The Montana Republican was lying about a bullet wound the candidate said was from combat in Afghanistan, an accusation that has vexed the GOP campaign for months.
Former Ranger Kim Beach’s claim that Sheehy in fact shot himself during a family trip in Montana was immediately dismissed by Sheehy and his allies as a smear campaign engineered by Democrats in a race expected to help decide. Control of the Senate.
But with the election less than three weeks away, it adds to the enormous pressures the political newcomer already faces as he challenges three-term Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester.
Sheehy is a former US Navy SEAL whose military record is the focus of his bid for office. During his controversial speeches and in a book Sheehy published last year, he recounts being wounded on several occasions in combat, including in the arm in 2012.
Sheehy was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds he sustained in a separate combat incident and was also awarded a Bronze Star.
A Sheehy campaign spokesman said Beach was a partisan Democrat pushing a “libelous story.”
“Anyone who tries to capitalize on the fact that Tim Sheehy was involved in war as a young man and spent most of his 20s in some of the most dangerous places in the world is either a partisan hack, a journalist with an agenda, or straight.” “Disgusting individual,” said spokeswoman Katie Martin.
He has faced scrutiny over his arm wound since April, when the Washington Post quoted a Glacier National Park ranger as saying anonymously that Sheehy accidentally shot himself in 2015, when he was traveling with his family and dropped his gun from a car and fired when It hit the ground. Land in the parking lot at Logan Pass. The guard mentioned in the story is Peaches.
Sheehy was cited and paid a $525 fine for illegally discharging a firearm into the glacier, government records show.
The Republican candidate said in response to the April story that he lied to the park ranger, not about being injured in Afghanistan.
Sheehy said he fell while hiking on the glacier and injured his arm, then made up the bullet wound story to cover up the fact that the 2012 incident may have been friendly fire. He said he did not want members of his unit in Afghanistan to suffer any consequences.
With absentee voting underway in Montana and Sheehy poised for a potential victory, Democrat Beach said Friday that he “can’t let him go forward with something like this without telling the truth.”
Beach said he interviewed Sheehy at the hospital where he was treated for his gunshot wound.
“At the time, he was obviously embarrassed about it. And, you know, he admitted what I was there for – shooting up in the park. “He knows the truth and the truth is not complicated. When you start lying things get complicated.”
His decision to go public was previously reported by The Washington Post.
Beach worked as a park ranger for more than three decades and is now retired. He lives in a small town near a glacier. He posted a photo of himself on social media wearing a “Make America Wrong Again” hat and said he was voting Democratic.
He denied any connection to the Tester campaign or other Democratic organizations.
Tester’s campaign has run ads in recent weeks criticizing Sheehy for lying about the gunshot wound. A campaign spokesman had no immediate comment Friday.
The Montana Democratic Party seized on Beach’s recent comments as offering a “first-hand account” of what happened to Sheehy.
But National Republican Senatorial Committee communications director Mike Berg rejected the latest iteration of the accusations against Sheehy. He noted that it is a sign of Democrats’ desperation because they fear Tester will lose.
“It’s the last gasp of a politician who sees his career coming to an end,” Berg said.